NSA Program Swamped FBI With Bad Leads
F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. The spy agency was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of phone and Internet traffic. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.
When you have devolved into a national security state, what else can you expect?
"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."
The poor schoolteacher will have a FBI file for the rest of his/her life. Case Closed? Hardly.
In response to the F.B.I. complaints, the N.S.A. eventually began ranking its tips on a three-point scale, with 3 being the highest priority and 1 the lowest, the officials said. Some tips were considered so hot that they were carried by hand to top F.B.I. officials. But in bureau field offices, the N.S.A. material continued to be viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new bunch of tips meant more "calls to Pizza Hut," one official, who supervised field agents, said.
Nice.
Some F.B.I. officials said they were uncomfortable with the expanded domestic role played by the N.S.A. and other intelligence agencies, saying most intelligence officers lacked the training needed to safeguard Americans' privacy and civil rights. They said some protections had to be waived temporarily in the months after Sept. 11 to detect a feared second wave of attacks, but they questioned whether emergency procedures like the eavesdropping should become permanent.
That discomfort may explain why some F.B.I. officials may seek to minimize the benefits of the N.S.A. program or distance themselves from the agency. "This wasn't our program," an F.B.I. official said. "It's not our mess, and we're not going to clean it up."
Why did "some protections had to be waived temporarily in the months after Sept. 11 to detect a feared second wave of attacks"? Legal experts are mostly saying that legal surveillance could have been ramped up under FISA.
The N.S.A.'s legal authority for collecting the information it passed to the F.B.I. is uncertain. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires a warrant for the use of so-called pen register equipment that records American phone numbers, even if the contents of the calls are not intercepted. But officials with knowledge of the program said no warrants were sought to collect the numbers, and it is unclear whether the secret executive order signed by Mr. President Bush in 2002 to authorize eavesdropping without warrants also covered the collection of phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
These fuckers are in real legal trouble, however much the apologists try to steer the debate.
posted by Effwit at 10:16 AM
3 Comments:
One would think the illegal spying would force anything the FBI found subsequently on any case to be thrown out of court. Assuming, of course, that any of these cases made their way into the justice system to begin with. Or would they just go to rendition and military tribunals?
The whole bloody mess just continues to stink. I just hope some people in high places have enough balls to call them on it.
Drew L:
Aside from the unfortunate Brooklyn Bridge "blowtorch" plotter, I know of no cases that have made it tothe courts.
However, I have heard that the illegal wiretaps were used to help deport thousands of Muslims from the U.S. in the year following 9-11.
Stonefruit:
No kidding.
But it is no surprise that cops would favor a police state.
They are just disagreeing on the details of how it is to be implemented.
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